


Truly

by madly_extravagantly_absurdly



Category: Dorian Gray (2009), The Picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde
Genre: "friendship", Fluffy, M/M, Short, Short & Sweet, and an actual gay monologue, dorian's being insecure for once awww, henry's nowhere to be seen, no dickin, nothing except basil's internal gay monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-07
Updated: 2019-03-07
Packaged: 2019-11-13 13:17:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 625
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18032441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madly_extravagantly_absurdly/pseuds/madly_extravagantly_absurdly
Summary: Liking, loving and devotion, though similar as they may seem, are three very different things - and Dorian Gray is finally learning to tell them apart.





	Truly

"Do you truly like me?"

"If there is one thing in this world you need not question, it is my admiration for you, Dorian."

"But Basil," said the lad, his posture becoming more relaxed against the chair even despite his question, "They aren't the same thing, are they?"

The friends sat together in the ambient twilight of Basil's studio. The flatteringly soft, golden light, made Dorian's gentle features more becoming than ever; the artist had a penchant for staring at him. He wished, sometimes, that his gaze may be his fingertips, fearing that the melancholy written on his own face may expose him - and he wished that his soul's slavery to Dorian's beauty was solely artistic. How strange it was that the young man opposite him was struck with such doubt!

"You listen to Harry too much," Basil said, in his sensible voice - common sense was terribly cruel to him, always rearing her head where she was most unwelcome. The painter’s heart could not bear the thought that his muse may be suffering over something so simple. "But, if it eases you; I truly like you, Dorian." That was all it took to fill the artist's head with thoughts that caused his quiet; there was so much he wanted to say, and yet he dared not say it. Words stuck in the back of his throat and made his chest burn - but his voice was much too restless for such silence. “Why does such a thing trouble you?"

"It doesn't trouble me, I suppose... I simply wonder; everyone is always so conscious to remind me that I am beautiful, but never to remember that I have more than a face," he said, the tone of his voice gentle, almost like it had been when he had spoken his first words to the painter. Delicately tracing the rim of his glass with his finger, he stood and came closer to Basil, facing him again once he was sitting. "I suppose Harry has frightened me; he has convinced me that my youth is worth everything, and once it fades..." The muse's voice trailed away, left dangling in the air.

"That is not so," Basil said, absolutely sure; Dorian's free hand was so close to his own, the heat from it so subtly beckoning him, he may have taken it if common sense did not so prevent him. He knew from positioning him that the young man's skin was yielding, soft like new rose petals – and yet the artist noted that he hadn't ever truly felt it. "I am an artist, that is true; it is true that my artistic sensibilities have fallen quite in love with you; but Harry doesn't see a man past one aspect. It is his weakness. I am an artist, in his mind, I must be like all artists; and you are simply beautiful and nothing else. He is a deep thinker, and yet awfully shallow. You, Dorian, are my dearest friend, and I will always think of you that way." When the artist's voice was finally silent once more, he cast his gaze away; he was sure that guilt shone from within him, and Dorian would know his feelings in an instant.

The muse himself was stunned; even although he spoke like Harry, the words felt different as his mind worked on them. The artist before him - his soul was vulnerable, it was tender, so many things that he knew Lord Henry had never dared analyse; time meant everything and nothing, it seemed - everything to the individual, and yet nothing to a relationship. Henry didn't seem to know him any more intently than Dorian himself would. "Basil--"

"I apologise, if that was too much; I wasn't truly thinking."

"Prove you love me."


End file.
